{"id":4576,"date":"2015-04-02T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T15:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=4576"},"modified":"2015-03-24T17:33:17","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T00:33:17","slug":"mark-watches-leverage-s04e07-the-grave-danger-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2015\/04\/mark-watches-leverage-s04e07-the-grave-danger-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Leverage’: S04E07 – The Grave Danger Job"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the seventh episode of the fourth season of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>, you can just bury me here because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m done. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For talk of death, racial stereotypes, grief, claustrophobia, and taphophobia (fear of being buried alive).<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so fucked up.<\/p>\n

I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but feel heartbroken by this episode. The Wickett family are taken in for their crimes; Javier is arrested; the Newtons get their money back; and Hardison is rescued before he suffocates. And yet? The experience itself was so raw, so tense and terrifying, that my nerves are a wreck. I feel jittery. I cannot stop thinking about Parker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fears; I cannot un-hear Hardison begging Parker to stay on the phone.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so fucked up.<\/p>\n

The Mark<\/b><\/p>\n

If there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hell, there better be a special place for people who exploit those who are grieving. Darlene Wickett is ruthless in a way that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost uncharacteristically awful for\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>. She and her sons prey on those who have lost a loved one, and they do so TWOFOLD. They steal the money for funeral services, deny they were ever paid it, AND THEN THEY STEAL THE IDENTITIES OF THE RECENTLY DECEASED WHOSE FAMILIES THEY JUST SCREWED OVER. Oh, and if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not bad enough? Darlene sells the stolen identities to a Mexican drug cartel!!! All around, stellar decisions are made!!! (I feel slightly weird about the costuming choices for Javier, by the way. The style of clothing that he wears is extremely typical of gang members in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California, so it was utterly bizarre to see it on someone who apparently lives in Massachusetts. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to say there aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t any Mexicans or Latinos within Boston, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a specific style, and I think it was used here just to communicate that he was part of a gang\/cartel.)<\/p>\n

I wanted them destroyed, and that was before I knew how Hardison ended up in that coffin. FINISH THEM, LEVERAGE TEAM.<\/p>\n

The Con<\/b><\/p>\n

You know that when the team can infiltrate a place in the first fifteen minutes that something utterly terrible is going to happen. The initial con was more of a grift meant to distract the Wicketts so that Eliot and Parker could find their hidden supply of money, which then morphed to a beautiful set-up to implicate Darlene in her identity theft scam. Even though there\u00c2\u00a0is<\/i> a resolution to these cons by the end of the episode, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the focus. We get some closure, but this is not about that.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about love and life.<\/p>\n

The Burial<\/b><\/p>\n

I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect another recent episode relying so heavily on Aldis Hodge\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s acting after \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Van Gogh Job.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Grave Danger Job\u00e2\u20ac\u009d works as well as it does without both Hodge\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Beth Riesgraf\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s performances. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that line early in this episode about Hardison\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s claustrophobia that deliberately sets up the kind of experience he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to have while buried alive. Even when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interacting with Darlene during his grift of her, you can tell he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mortified by the entire idea of a coffin. So when he wakes up inside the Admiral coffin courtesy of Javier, he is in his literal worst nightmare. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s horrible to watch, and as astounding as this episode is, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if I could watch this again. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0too<\/i> real, and Hodge\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s portrayal is too<\/i> accurate.<\/p>\n

The same goes for Parker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scenes. If the last episode\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gag about being replaced with Parker 2000 was an indication of her fears about being close to anyone, then this is also her worst nightmare. She has to accept that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible that Hardison may die, which is too much for her because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still getting used to the idea of him being around her. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still adjusting to the idea of caring for other people. How can she do that if the\u00c2\u00a0people she loves are\u00c2\u00a0just going to go away in the end?<\/p>\n

So it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s meaningful to watch her be the anchor for Hardison, to use her skills and knowledge to help him survive. So much of this show is other characters teaching Parker and helping her learn, and that dynamic is totally reversed here. Hardison is the one in a vulnerable state, and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s his rock and guidance. But even if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something romantic about that, this is still a horribly traumatic experience, one that becomes increasingly difficult to watch. The affection we see between Parker and Hardison is tinged with terror, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not exactly comforting to hear. Like, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a huge deal to me that Parker called Hardison by his first name. That hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00c2\u00a0ever<\/i> happened, so I know what it signifies. But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel\u00c2\u00a0good<\/i> thinking about it. I feel like my heart has shattered.<\/p>\n

The same goes for the big reunion scene at the end. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much communicated through physical action, like the way that Eliot rushes through that cemetery to free Hardison. Or the fact that he embraces him in such a fierce hug, something that Eliot has always been reluctant to do with Hardison. Or the way that Nate makes an ill-timed joke and abandons the humor for a beautiful embrace himself.<\/p>\n

Or Parker, standing away from it all because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so overwhelming, because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never had to deal with this sort of emotional attachment, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the most crushing things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

This is easily my favorite season so far, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. I just can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even wrap my mind around the calibre of storytelling here. Christ.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Grave Danger Job\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– The Mark Does Stuff Tour 2015 is now live and includes dates across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the U.K., and Ireland. Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be the remainder of\u00c2\u00a0The Legend of Korra<\/i>, series 8 of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, and Kings<\/i>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!
\n– If you would like to support this website and keep Mark Does Stuff running,\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve put up a detailed post explaining how you can!
\n<\/a>– Please check out the\u00c2\u00a0 MarkDoesStuff.com<\/a>. All Mark Watches videos for past shows\/season are now archived there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"